Chapter 1 - Carl
My wife Charlotte was talking in the other room, but I was not listening. I know I should have been, but it's not always easy. In this case, it was about the Housewives of Who Gives a Fuck. I love my beautiful wife to distraction, but I just can't stand that mindless TV garbage that she's obsessed with.
Anyway, at that moment I had work to do, as we're trying to fix one major client issue and win a new piece of business at the same time. In the morning, I had a meeting with leadership to report our current contract performance.
So, I was busy in my home office, which just happens to look a lot like a kitchen table. Ten feet away, she's bugging me with that TV show stupidity in our tiny open concept apartment.
Getting a house is our top priority, so we can start a family. However, I was foolish enough to save very little money before we got married, and that money went towards our wedding. The house my baby wants here in Tampa is over $600,000, so I have work to do.
I have one of those shitty IT implementation jobs where you work your ass off all the time, travel during every single week, take shit from bosses and clients and get no credit in the end. And it's endless as there are so many clients with bad old legacy systems or with none at all. So here I am on a Sunday night trying to get ready for the next week.
"That (fill in the blank person, because, as I said, I don't care) is such a slut," Charlotte says out loud to nobody, referring to the silly TV show. "I think she's having an affair. Mommy said that women who have affairs are just asking for trouble."
My wife had a very protective mother who was just full of all kinds of wisdom and passed it all on to her daughter. Many sentences in our house begin with 'Mommy said' as if it were gospel.
My mother-in-law passed on a few years ago of a heart attack, but her wisdom remained hammered in stone in the heart of my wife.
I'm not saying that Mommy-instilled knowledge is a bad thing. My wife is a ridiculously beautiful and sexy 22-year-old woman, but not the sharpest thing around. Her mother recognized that fact early and made sure her daughter had a good set of ground rules to live by.
Charlotte was born to a pair of middle-aged engineers who had long given up on the idea of children. When she did arrive, she was not what they were expecting.
First, she grew to be far too beautiful to have come from two such ordinary looking people and neither was prepared with the tools to handle that. Secondly, she did not in any way match their intellectual level. The combination of these facts scared them and drove her mother to take drastic action to guide her daughter to safe places.
The result is a set of rules that Charlotte has been taught to live by. The key ones are:
1. Don't talk too much to expose the lack of intellect, except of course to your husband, who's a safe place and you never stop pestering with silly questions.
2. Stick to subjects you know. Ask questions without comment or opinion about subjects you don't know.
3. Dress in a very tasteful and elegant way. She nails this one. A better dressed woman may not exist on the planet. She spends about 75 percent of her salary on her attire, accessories and makeup.
4. Act a bit aloof, even cold, with people you don't know as it's better to be thought of as stuck up than stupid. She doesn't always pull this one off.
5. Be friendly and kind to those you do know. People will be less likely to question your intelligence.
I met Charlotte two years ago when I was hired to be a lead client integration manager for the company where she worked. I walked in the door for my interview and saw her at the reception desk and that was it. I was going to work there no matter what. One look, and I knew she was made for me.
Charlotte is a stunningly beautiful blonde like a swimsuit model or one of those Instagram girls. She is always smiling in a way that melts your heart. At the same time, her 5'8" hourglass body hardens your dick. My dad says Charlotte reminds him of some old actresses from the 1940s -- very classy and regal looking. That's her mother's influence, always wanting her to reach high to achieve her dreams.
She has worked hard on her vocabulary to look and sound smarter, but often something comes out of her mouth that lets you know what she is. The fact is that she is clearly ditzy in a Jessica Simpson way. Frankly, it's one of her charms that I love so much.
The funny thing is that sometimes she accentuates the dumb blonde persona. I call it 'putting on the Marilyn.' There are times when it comes out more than others, such as when she's confused, frustrated or intimidated. She says that's more of her natural self, and the more intelligent looking model is the one her mom created.
Either way, I did not care. I put everything I had into knocking down her defenses. It helped that I matched her in good looks, which I know sounds conceited, but you will, I'm sure, get the point. The most common comment we get is that we look like the quintessential beautiful couple, just made for each other.
"My daddy had an affair and Mommy hated it," said Charlotte, continuing her monologue about the TV show. "That's why they got divorced. It always confused me why he did it. Do you think a lot of people have affairs?" Did you ever meet your domineering mother, honey?
"Yes, Princess. I think a lot of people do." I was not really paying full attention and should have seen trouble coming. "It helps account for the high divorce rate."
"Do you know anybody who is?"
"Who is what?"
"Having an affair! Are you listening?" Ok. I guess I'm stopping work now to listen to some silliness. I know she has flaws, but we all do. I just love her beauty and her wonderful heart. I even love her insatiable curiosity which was driving me crazy at that particular moment.
"Charlotte, I work with men all day. They are known to screw around, so 'yes' I know some."
"Who?" Now, I work at the same company as my wife. She is our receptionist, so she knows everyone who walks through those doors right in front of her desk and is known to share rumors with her friends. I am not going to tell Miss Loose Lips what I know about the bad habits of the other men we both work with.
"I don't know any details cause I don't wanna know."
"But who." She can be like a border collie after a tennis ball when she locks onto something. I will have to give someone up. No problem.
"You are up on all the rumors, honey. You have to know that Stein has a reputation as a philanderer." It was common knowledge that our CEO, Mr. Harold Stein, slept around, and he was pretty proud of the hot women he could attract. That seemed a safe one for me to let her have.
"You mean he gives people money?"
"No baby, that's a philanthropist. A philanderer is a man who sleeps with lots of women. A womanizer."
"Oh... really. Like a woman is a slut. How come your word sounds better than our word? Of course, I have heard that lots of women sleep with Mr. Stein, but I never thought that was true! He's so old and gross and creepy." She grimaced.
"Yes."
"And how he dresses! Tight polos and dockers do not flatter that body."
"I wear them sometimes."
She smiled. "Oh, but you have the body to make them look gooooood, honey!"
"Thank you."
"He's not nice either. He called me 'stupid' when I first started. I was new and got flustered with that phone system and messed up a client call. He was very mean. Who would sleep with him?"
Charlotte absolutely hated to be called dumb or stupid. That would make you an enemy forever. She absolutely hated her boss, Gary, the head of Security, who berated her constantly.
Gary was a pompous dipshit who only had a job because he was a long-time friend of Stein's. No one took him seriously. He was a former street cop, about the same age and physical condition as his benefactor. Most importantly, he was a real jerk to Charlotte primarily because she rebuffed his advances.
"But Stein's rich and powerful and many women are attracted to those qualities."
"Really? Like who?" She cocked her pretty head and gave me an adorable questioning look.
